Rewatching a lot of The Undertaker’s matches for “Best of the Streak” has been pretty fun. There are matches that run the gamut ranging from bad to amazing. One match at the deep end—amazing, not the bad, shallow end—sees Edge take on The Undertaker at WrestleMania XXIV.
Now, I’m not sure why WWE opted to return to the Roman numerals for this WrestleMania after WM23 nor do I care as the numerals always added to the epic nature of the event.
None of that is important, let’s get into Taker vs. Edge!
The Road to WrestleMania XXIV
So, Batista and Taker’s beef heading into WM23 kicked back up in late 2007. By this time Batista was champion again and managed to fend off a challenge from The Undertaker at Cyber Sunday.
This would be followed by another loss to Batista for the World title at Survivor Series 2007 in the Hell in a Cell—dope match, by the way. At this show, Edge would interfere, putting a target on his back.
Edge was dating SmackDown General Manager Vickie Guerrero at the time and his actions at Survivor Series resulted in her being Tombstone Piledriver-ed on SmackDown. Since GMs are meant to have lower finishing move defense than referees, she put in the hospital and Undertaker’s vote for the great GM of all-time—Theodore Long—took over GM duties in the meantime.
It’s important to know that Long was the Jack Tunney to Taker’s Hulk Hogan. With that in mind, you know what I’m getting at here: The Undertaker was put into a favorable position at Armageddon. He would join foe Edge in challenging Batista’s reign as champion in a triple threat bout.
Once again, “The Ultimate Opportunist” would get the better of the situation with some strategic interference from his lackeys and win the World title. Entering the Rumble at number one, he was unable to repeat his victory from Royal Rumble 2007 and was chucked out by HBK.
The Phenom would finally score a PPV win by winning SmackDown’s Elimination Chamber. This would give him a shot at the World title at WrestleMania XXIV.
What was cool about this match is that there was a sense that this could’ve gone either way. At this point, Taker was undefeated at WrestleMania. Heading in, he was 15-0 and the late-2000s was prime Deadman.
The Undertaker vs. Edge
Edge had proven to be not only tough as nails but he had backup plans to backup plans to hold on to his title. He also had a good track record at WM, suffering his first loss the year before in a Money in the Bank match.
Up until that point he had won five straight WrestleMania matches, each one having a level of danger to them. There was a chance that he could possibly defeat WrestleMania’s greatest ring general.
I’d say it would’ve been more likely if he was facing an aging Taker who still wrestled in Attitude Era or New Generation mode but this was an old dog who had since learned some new tricks.
The match between these two was everything you’d expect from a late-2000s SmackDown main event only with a bigger stage. Edge always brought the heat at WM at this time and again, The Undertaker was really getting more into matches that were epic in importance.
This was over a decade of not main eventing the PPV following the cold bologna sandwich of a match that was Taker vs. Sid at WM13. Edge really took the fight to the Deadman and there were several moments where it appeared as though we would see the end of the streak.
Edge’s downfall was his over-reliance on the Spear. While it was a reliable finisher and something that could’ve vanquished Taker, it had just failed to put him away. Taker was weakened and another could’ve torpedoed him but it was almost as if he’d forgotten about Big Evil’s most recent new trick and finisher the Hell’s Gate.
Sure, The Undertaker had other matches that helped put the Hell’s Gate over as a finisher but countering with this gogoplata submission really served as a neutralizer to Edge’s devastating finisher.
As a result, Taker would claim the World Championship for the second time and six total reigns at this point. Later, he would be stripped of the title by the honorable GM Vickie Guerrero as the Hell’s Gate was deemed an illegal hold.
It was totally a fair ruling as the submission was far more dangerous than turning an opponent upside down and attempting to turn them into a Flintstones character by drilling their head into the canvas.
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